What should I write about in my personal statement? (Get Accepted to Your Dream University Part #9)

- Hello my dear perspective students,

today is the day when we talk about your personal statement,

which is roughly 30% of your application

and for many universities, especially for the top ones,

your personal statement will be

the key decision making factor in the application.

So if you're interested, if you're

worried about your application

and you want to make sure that you're doing

everything to get in, listen carefully,

cause this video is really important.

(chill, heavy beat music)

All right, the structure of today's video is

first we're gonna talk about my experience,

I did my personal statement for Masters and MBA,

and I'm gonna talk what I wrote about.

And then the second part of this video,

we're gonna look through a personal statement

that got a student into Harvard for his Bachelor's degree.

So again, I am raising a plank for you,

we're gonna look at the best,

I think my personal statements

are also pretty strong since they got me

admissions and financial aid, so listen carefully.

On average, your personal statement is five paragraphs,

and it answers a question the university is asking.

Normally, in 90% of cases, you'd be asked a question,

why did you decide to study whatever you're applying for,

and why now, and why our university?

So basically, your personal statement

is your story, your motivation behind whatever you're doing.

Sometimes people be like, oh, I wanna study

economics cause maybe I would be an awesome

entrepreneur and that would help me

to create a product that everyone would use,

and I'm so ambitious.

I want to create something that will bring bees

to the whole entire world, and please trust me.

You know, I once got a letter from a student,

he's like, Marina what do you think?

My GPA is like 2.0, my English is really bad,

can I get into Stanford?

And I'm like hey, you should look at

their average class profile, and asses your chances.

He's like, I looked at their average class profile

and I know that my chances are really low.

But what if in my personal statement

I tell them that I really, really,

really want to study at Stanford, would I get in?

Come on, like, don't be a kid.

You're in a competition, they'll be

like thousands of people applying,

especially if we're talking about Stanford,

5% acceptance rate for their MBA,

Harvard like 10% acceptance rate, or whatever.

So you'll be competing with people

who won't be writing I really want

to go to your university and this person's statement,

they're gonna be showing their personality.

So the opening paragraph, ideally,

is the beginning of your story.

My personal statements were less complicated,

was less arty I would say, they were really honest.

So basically your first paragraph

is the beginning of story and this should be something

that would make a reader want to read further.

Cause if it starts, hello, my name is Marina,

I'm originally from Russia, I'm already bored.

But if I start with something like,

hey, when I meet English native speakers

they always ask me if I'm from an English speaking country.

That means something cause they know I'm from Russia,

and they're wondering oh how did she learn that language.

So I'm telling them briefly my story.

And the second paragraph, I'm telling them

more about the business.

So basically, how the admissions committee

looks at your personal statement,

everyone wants to have a future leader in class.

Everyone wants to have a person

who's gonna succeed 99%.

The only proof of your future success,

is your past success.

And what they want to see is how you achieve that success,

what drives you from inside, out?

What makes them sure that you're not gonna

withdraw in a couple months?

How can you tell them that this program,

this university is an inevitable step

to your world domination?

Don't use those words, but this is roughly

so that you can understand what they're looking for.

So in the second paragraph I give them

a little of my business background,

telling them about our clients,

I'm telling about our progress,

and I'm also telling them about my startup

idea that I've started like with an offline company,

and then I decided to build an online company,

and this is basically where we're coming to

the inevitability of getting masters or MBA abroad

because, yes, I want to build an international company.

By the way if you want to see all of my essays

and my CV, the link will be below.

I have a book with all of the admissions ins and outs,

and all of the things that I've gone through.

So something to have on your desk,

something to refer to and also samples of my resume

and personal statements that you can use

maybe as a template, maybe you can borrow

some phrases or whatever, but yeah the link will be below.

(gulping)

Then the third paragraph, I am explaining

why I think I need education.

First, I have this company and I have ambition

to make it international corporation,

and I already have some success.

I'm giving them numbers that prove my success,

and I'm telling them that I'm sure

that I will be able to build this international company,

and I'm telling them that building

an internal company out of Russia is

eh, not the best thing to do,

and I'm also talking about education

that I'm lacking because I was studying

economics in a country where economics,

we're still like Soviet kind of style, 30 years ago,

and we're still not that developed as the US is.

In the end, I'm talking about my career goals

that I want to build this multi-billion company,

and I am also selling myself as a student.

I'm also mentioning my extracurricular

activities, and I'm also mentioning

that I am a very social student.

That I won't be only studying,

and I've already done a lot of social concerts.

I've done a lot of volunteer work

back at my university, and I'm eager

to do that at your university.

I'm eager to do that during your program

cause this is who I am, this is what I've already done,

and this is where I'm going to.

So again, your personal statement

is a set of your stories that lead you

to a decision of getting an MBA,

Masters, Bachelor's, abroad.

The one thing to remember, I wasn't applying

to top-ranking universities, I was applying

to like tier-two universities.

And I was still able to get in,

get financial aid, so this worked for me.

But if we're talking about top universities,

I wouldn't say this is a perfect example.

We're gonna look at a perfect example right now.

This is a personal statement that

got a student into Harvard.

It might look a little weird to you at first,

but then you understand why he's doing that.

Because Harvard admissions team,

they see thousands of applications

and you need to stand out from the first sentence.

So let's take a look.

Okay, Allen states with, I lie in bed,

listening to the hallway for shuffling feet.

Nothing.

I duck beneath my blanket, switch on my Mickey Mouse

flashlight, and pull out a Rubik's cube and a stopwatch.

Beep, my fiery fingers grab the puzzle.

You're like what is happening?

A personal statement for a top university is happening.

He's telling a story.

And like, yes, sometimes you have stories

that are like drama, you had some problem

in your life and you're discussing that.

Sometimes you don't have them,

but if you do, describe them in a way that Allen does.

Let's continue reading.

This is the eight-year-old me.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Renaissance man.

Never mind just picking law, medicine,

or Norwegian Studies 101, I wanted to do everything.

Always hungry for more, I even taught myself

to write ambidextrously and pick locks.

Solving the Rubik's cube was my latest challenge.

Beep, 59 seconds.

I throw the cube down in triumph.

Confident, I was well on my way

to becoming a jack-of-all-trades.

But I soon faced an obstacle greater

than any before, the snooze button.

I don't know when the habit actually began,

but it continues to this day.

On far too many mornings, the button

smashes my willpower to the microsecond battle

between a mental sense of duty

and nine more minutes of sleep.

6:00 a.m. the pale blue clock reports.

The snooze button moans, "Press me.

You know what you want to do, you need sleep."

Ironic isn't it?

I can write out the chemical structure

of aspartic acid, and I can detail

Nietzsche's philosophies of the genesis of good and evil,

but I lose to a 4-inch slab of plastic.

The perfect quality for a Renaissance man indeed.

As I try to write an essay like that,

according to my English teacher,

is meant to show off your stellar qualities.

It seems odd that I want to reveal

this embarrassing weakness.

But to tell the truth, I actually began writing

right after I was trapped in bed

for what I thought would be a ten-minute nap.

I knew right then that I needed to

wage war against the snooze button.

You might be wondering, hey this is a

completely different personal statement.

Marina, this has nothing to do with what you just said.

Again, what I'm telling you, personal statements

for ivy-leagues are just like that, I've seen a lot.

There's a question in Stanford's MBA program,

the question is, what matters most to you and why?

And I've seen two winning essays,

one was pizza matters most to me because

they have a pastry from Italy, sauce from China,

and this amazing mixture of cultures

and traditions brings something amazing.

And the second essay I've seen,

the thing that matters most to me

is ice cream cause at Stanford on a hot day,

you know ice cream is keeping my brain flowing,

it's keeping me productive, like this is

the style of top-university's essays.

(clunking)

And I guarantee you, if you use this

structure for a lower ranking universities,

you would 100% stand out.

Again, if you're betting everything

on this admissions, I would highly recommend

try to do something like this.

I know it's hard, I know this guy

could be an amazing blogger, he'd write amazing stories,

he could be a journalist, but he's not.

He's just a smart person who can talk

about his daily things like struggling with

a snooze button in a way that you want to read.

Like why is he talking about the snooze button?

And we're gonna continue reading

because there is a purpose.

He's actually leading to a university

degree with a snooze button, listen.

In the past, it's defeated me far too many times,

like this summer's July 4th, when I almost

missed the fireworks on the Boston Esplanade.

Or when I almost slept through the hiking trip

to New Hampshire's White Mountains,

and had three angry friends rip

my motel door from its hinges.

Or the time I made my parents late

for our giant family dinner in Taiwan.

My tiny cousins snickered, covering

their mouths with the tablecloth,

while my grandmother clicked her tongue

like a disapproving hen.

All right, so I had violated the divine honor

of the family and the tenets of Confucius.

I blame the snooze button.

But there is still hope.

Here we come, the story finishes

and he's talking about how the story

is leading him to something bigger, listen.

Ever the inventor, I design prototypes,

maybe an alarm clock wired to an electrical current.

The next time I think about hitting the snooze button,

I instead receive a 120-watt dose of Edison's goodness.

Maybe that's too painful.

How about an alarm clock that explodes on contact?

But the pragmatist in me surfaces,

and I realize buying a new alarm clock

every day probably wouldn't be very appealing.

I thus propose a new model, an alarm clock

based on voice recognition.

The snooze button will work only after

the sleeper recites a complete

Shakespearean sonnet each morning.

The benefits are twofold, if you don't

bother reverting to 16th century speak,

you'll have to wake up in a sea of "thee's,"

"thou's," and "forsooth's."

The dedicated linguist, however,

will gain, and deserve, nine more minutes of sweet sleep.

Perhaps if the entire country implements the model,

millions of people could learn

all 154 sonnets within a year.

Now that I have some leverage against the snooze button,

the Renaissance man in me is satisfied.

I think I'll take a ten-minute nap,

uncorrupted, of course, by the snooze button.

Then with the extra nine minutes,

maybe I'll tach myself to cook fried rice.

What is he doing with his personal statement?

He's doing several things, first he's showing

that he's interested in many things in this life.

He's talking about Rubik's cube,

he's talking about inventing a new alarm clock.

Second, he shows his personality.

You see that he isn't taking life too seriously,

he's funny, he can laugh at himself.

He's making fun of, you know,

wanting to sleep nine more minutes.

And you also come up with quite funny solutions.

Third, he's admitting his weakness

which is also important.

Like if you get a question in you essay,

what are your weaknesses?

If you say I don't have any, that means

you're bad a self-assessment.

Everyone has weaknesses, and he's talking

about his weaknesses, he likes to sleep

nine more minutes, he's struggling every morning.

This is precious and the way he's showing that,

without actually telling you hey this is my weakness,

he's showing it through example.

Like, all the time, I've told you this 100 times,

always, always show an example.

If you're describing yourself with an adjective,

or your recommender does it,

there should be a story behind it, 100%.

Again, we talked about two types of essays.

And I know the second type of essay

might work for my now cause I've done so much blogging,

I've done so much writing I can do something like this now,

but back in 2015 when I was doing my applications,

I cannot imagine myself doing something like this.

And this is why I've done whatever I've done

and we've talked about this in this video.

So it's really up to you.

Number one key factor, be yourself.

If you feel that something that I mentioned

with this Harvard essay looks like you,

then try cause this is a winner.

This is something amazing.

If it doesn't feel like you, don't even bother.

Because you won't be able to create something like this,

so you'll spend a lot of time and it won't still be you.

So focus on the first option instead.

That was it for me for today guys.

I hope this video was useful,

and I hope you got some ideas

on how to improve your personal statement

on how to show the admissions committee

that you are the best and you're the one

that needs to get in, and needs to get some financial aid,

cause yes education is expensive,

come on and you're worth it.

You're worth being accepted and financed.

So please let me know, if you have any questions,

all the links that I mentioned are below.

My book and additional resources

with my personal statements and CVs.

If you need to check your personal statement,

fluent.express, Native Speakers and (inaudible),

and always feel free to ask questions in comments below,

there are a lot of people watching

and you can connect with other applicants as well.

Thank you so much and we'll see you in the next videos.

Bye, Bye.